Watch ads, get your bills paid

How to get young men to watch ads? Offer to pay their bills.

(Business 2.0 Magazine) -- Thanks to a tiny company called BrightSpot Media, movie rental giant Blockbuster (Charts, Fortune 500) could have a powerful new weapon in its war with rival Netflix: free rentals.

When the ink dries on a pending deal, Blockbuster customers could get DVDs in the mail for free -- if they go to the BrightSpot website each month, watch ads for about 20 minutes, and answer questions about them.

Arizona-based BrightSpot started in October, but its business model -- offer to offset subscription fees for consumers if they view its video ads -- has already attracted big-league partners like the NBA, Major League Baseball, and GameFly.

"The fit between message and audience has to be really tight," warns John Deighton, a Harvard business professor who researches digital and interactive marketing. So BrightSpot asks users about their incomes, locations, and what kinds of ads they'd like to see, which provides a wealth of juicy demographic details.

Says BrightSpot CEO Aaron Martens, "We have more data than advertisers know what to do with."